


Security

by Delighted_Librarian



Series: Meet the Braedens [3]
Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-19 02:08:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14864636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delighted_Librarian/pseuds/Delighted_Librarian
Summary: Lisa establishes her career





	Security

2003.

It had been two years since Ben and Lisa had moved in with Granny Harris. It had been a hard time and no one had been thrilled with the arraignment, especially Granny Harris. She was stubborn and old and had coveted her independence for as long as she could, but when the maid found her at the bottom of the stairs, the family had intervened and for free room and board, Lisa would look after Granny. The first month had been awkward, the second painful and the third cold, but then Ben’s antics started to win Granny over and feathers were smoothed. 

The past year had been hard, but wonderful. Lisa had managed to find a work as a personal yoga instructor to Granny’s friend’s children and found the pay was quite good. It also gave her the flexibility to take care of Ben and be there if Granny needed anything once the help had gone home for the night. Lisa had forgotten how huge the house was and for the first time, got to know her Grandma as an adult. Grandma had worked in a factory during WWII and had risen to foreman while her husband had been fighting. That husband never came home. He second husband had left her for a star in Hollywood, and the third had died as a firefighter in the late sixties. So it had come as a shock when Grandma had remarried a millionaire in the late eighties. And what had been even more shocking was that they had been completely happy.

He had passed while Lisa was in college and left her a sizable allowance with the lawyers discretion if she wanted more, and the use of all assets until she passed, when all but the leftovers of her allowance up until her death and any earnings she might make would be left to her family and the rest of the family fortune, lands and assets would pass to his children and their families. 

But Granny had been smart and well connected. She had opened a health club and invested in the right people and her business was booming even as her own health was deteriorating. Lisa had started giving business advice and Granny had listened. After six months of living with her, Granny wanted to make Lisa the yoga department manager, but Lisa had refused, she wanted to have time with her son and Granny had respected that. At times Lisa thought that maybe that had been a trick, a litmus test, but apparently, she had passed because two days later Granny had given her the paperwork for a trust fund for Ben with Lisa as the administrator until Ben turned 25. Ben’s college and grad school would be paid for and he might still have a nest egg afterwards if he played his cards right. Other than the gift of Ben himself, it the kindest thing anyone had ever done for her. 

Lisa had come to love her Grandma for the amazing woman she was, a woman of strength, of faith, of hope. So when she hadn’t gotten up by 8 am last Monday, Lisa had known before she got to Grandma’s room, that Grandma had passed on. 

For the wealth Granny was used to, the funeral was small and humble, just family and two hundred of her closest friends. But what amazed Lisa the most was to realize that those two hundred people really had known Grandma well. For the past few days, the visits and phone calls that had filled her daylight hours had been filled with tears, yes, but joy and laughter as people in grief felt the need to tell Lisa their best memories of her Grandma. 

Lisa looked over at Ben, playing with blocks on one side of the fancy conference room and forced her mind back to the present. 

“… Signed and Declared by Clara Barton Saley Rakoff Bolthousen to be her will, in our presence, who at her request, in her presence…” she had hardly listened to a word the lawyer had said. But a moment later realized that he was silent and looked around. Her parents were nodding and her sister was stoic. The lawyer’s aide handed out documents to each of them and Lisa looked at them. Her parents was a handful of papers, her sister’s two or three, but Lisa’s was a binder three inches thick. She looked at it then looked up at the aide.

“What is this?”

“Your inheritance.” Lisa must have had a blank look on her face because the man smiled and said, “her company. She left it to you.” Lisa’s mind ran back over the words she hadn’t really listened to and what the aide said sounded vaguely familiar. She opened the front cover and looked at the table of contents to explain the business and what it now meant that she owned it. She owned a business. As long as she followed her Grandma’s advice and hired the right people, she would have a living without having to work for it. 

She could basically retire and live a modest lifestyle for the rest of her life. But she, personally, couldn’t do that. She had decided the day Grandma had given her the paperwork for Ben’s trust fund, that Ben would never know how much money he had. She would use it as she saw fit for him, but he would never know it until he turned twenty-five and no longer needed an executor. She would do a similar thing now. She would continue to work and live modestly to make sure he was not raised up as an entitled brat. But knowing that she didn’t have to worry about money, at the very least for a few years was a palpable relief.


End file.
